Designopolis
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2010
- Posts
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It's hard to shop for sound cards without reference because it seems this industry has a few support problems. The gist I seem to get is that a lot of cards either sound awesome or are inherently troublesome, limited to your specific luck of the draw. The card is to compliment an AD700, but not a speaker system due to residential issues.
To this end, I am looking for a card with these things, in order of most to least important (for headphones):
-Reliability. I'd rather get a card I know coming out of the box is not going to be inherently faulty due to poor quality control.
-Gaming. Nice sound stage for distinguishing direction and whatnot, and either Creative or Dolby's tech to accomplish that.
-Music. Obviously.
-Price. I have no more than 180 bucks to play with, including shipping and a 0.13% sales tax in my area.
For a while I was looking at the Auzentech Forte, because it meets all of these criteria well besides Reliability. The more I research, the less that notion swings. It's literally a one to one ratio of people saying the cards are great to people saying they have problems, usually in the vein of some sort of "chipping" or "thumping" effect. Demonstrations of this on Youtube make it sound similar to water coming to a simmer. There doesn't seem to be any inherent reason for this, just that those cards are faulty.
I was also looking at the Asus Xonar D1, which is apparently more reliable. As it stands it's my current choice, but it apparently has no better driver support than the Forte.
Finally, I have noticed that Auzentech has a new card out: The "X Meridian G2." this card sells itself as being far superior to the apparently award winning Meridian G1, but the issue is that I never used that card to be able to make the connection myself. It's too new to get any research done n it to see how it measures up. Any word from you guys?
Should I take the plunge an get the Xonar D1?
To this end, I am looking for a card with these things, in order of most to least important (for headphones):
-Reliability. I'd rather get a card I know coming out of the box is not going to be inherently faulty due to poor quality control.
-Gaming. Nice sound stage for distinguishing direction and whatnot, and either Creative or Dolby's tech to accomplish that.
-Music. Obviously.
-Price. I have no more than 180 bucks to play with, including shipping and a 0.13% sales tax in my area.
For a while I was looking at the Auzentech Forte, because it meets all of these criteria well besides Reliability. The more I research, the less that notion swings. It's literally a one to one ratio of people saying the cards are great to people saying they have problems, usually in the vein of some sort of "chipping" or "thumping" effect. Demonstrations of this on Youtube make it sound similar to water coming to a simmer. There doesn't seem to be any inherent reason for this, just that those cards are faulty.
I was also looking at the Asus Xonar D1, which is apparently more reliable. As it stands it's my current choice, but it apparently has no better driver support than the Forte.
Finally, I have noticed that Auzentech has a new card out: The "X Meridian G2." this card sells itself as being far superior to the apparently award winning Meridian G1, but the issue is that I never used that card to be able to make the connection myself. It's too new to get any research done n it to see how it measures up. Any word from you guys?
Should I take the plunge an get the Xonar D1?